Schneiderberg (Baalberge)

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Schneiderberg (Baalberge)
The Schneiderberg

The Schneiderberg
Schneiderberg (Baalberge) (Saxony-Anhalt)
Red pog.svg
Coordinates 51 ° 46 '3.9 "  N , 11 ° 47' 46"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 46 '3.9 "  N , 11 ° 47' 46"  E
place Bernburg , OT Baalberge , Saxony-Anhalt , Germany
Emergence 3900 to 3400 BC Chr.

The Schneiderberg is a multi-phase burial mound from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age in Baalberge , a district of Bernburg (Saale) in the Salzlandkreis , Saxony-Anhalt . During an excavation in 1901, ceramic vessels from an archaeological culture were discovered here for the first time , which later received the name Baalberg culture (3900-3400 BC). The Schneiderberg thus became the eponymous site for this culture. Further burials in this hill were later from the Walternienburg culture (3350–3100 BC), the spherical amphora culture (3100–2650 BC), the cord ceramics (2800–2050 BC) and the early Bronze Age Aunjetitz culture ( 2300–1550 BC). The finds from the burial mound are now in the Bernburg Castle Museum .

location

The Schneiderberg is located in the north of Baalberge, directly south of a garden section . A few meters to the southwest is a restaurant named after him .

There were originally several other burial mounds in and around Baalberge, but they were all destroyed in the late 18th and 19th centuries. To the south-east of the village by the post windmill was the Lange Berg , which was removed in 1853, but some details of the graves and additions are still known. The Schinderberg , which was destroyed in 1793, was located at today's cemetery . The Evangelienberg was located between Baalberge and Bernburg . In 1794 a burial mound near Rönitz was removed. Another grave mound destroyed was the Tochauer Berg near Kleinwirschleben .

In the wider area there are still some preserved burial mounds, about 6.2 km west of the Stockhof burial mound near Gröna and 4 km north of the Pohlsberg , 4.3 km away the Pfingstberg and 4.6 km away the Spitze Hoch ( all near Latdorf ) and 4.2 km northeast of the Fuchsberg near Weddegast . Also to the north are the three large stone graves Steinerne Hütte near Latdorf (4.8 km away), Heringsberg near Grimschleben (6.6 km away) and Bierberg near Gerbitz (6.9 km away).

Surname

The existence of the Schneiderberg was first recorded by Johann Christoph Bekmann in his History of the Principality of Anhalt , published in 1710 . He reports of two burial mounds, which he calls the Baal Mountains . These are probably the Schneiderberg and the Langen Berg, which were destroyed in the 19th century. Bekmann speculated whether the name could go back to the Phoenician god Baal or whether the word Pahl or stake in the sense of border stake and the burial mounds could have served as border markings.

Paul Höfer rejected these derivations and rather suspected that Baal goes back to the Middle High German bal or Old Saxon balu (evil, bad, harmful), presumably knowing that it is an old pagan burial place. His assumption is confirmed by the fact that the place Baalberge appears in documents of the 10th century in the spelling Balberg . Since Baalberge lies in a largely flat area, the ending -berge cannot be derived from a natural elevation. Höfer therefore concluded that the two burial mounds were known from ancient times as the Baalbergs and that the neighboring place derived its name from them.

Since the name Schneiderberg was also unknown to Bekmann, Höfer continued to suspect that this name is more recent. It appears for the first time in the Baalberg church chronicle from 1742.

Research history

In 1901, extensive excavations were carried out on the Schneiderberg by the Bernburg Antiquities Association under the leadership of its chairman Ferdinand Kälber . Another participant was Paul Höfer, from whom the only more detailed excavation report comes. The hill was supposed to be opened over a large area, but this project was restricted by a trigonometric point on the top of the hill. So only individual search cuts were created. The burials found in the hill indicated a very long useful life: graves from the Walternienburg culture, the spherical amphora culture, the corded ceramics and also from the Bronze Age were found. The oldest stone slab grave was finally discovered at the bottom of the hill, but due to its central location it could not be completely excavated because the survey point was located directly above it.

In this grave two vessels fell on, which had been added to the deceased (see below) and whose shape was unknown to the excavators until then. Höfer believed that he could make out similarities to the ceramics of the north German funnel cup culture. The most obvious difference, however, was that the pieces from Baalberg lacked the typical decoration of north German ceramics. According to his argument, the two vessels are therefore most likely to be assigned to the Bernburg culture , as this takes over the decorations from the north, but flattens them and often leaves them out completely.

In the following years, however, more and more similar vessels appeared and an assignment to the Bernburg culture seemed increasingly dubious. A first systematic overview of the finds in question was compiled by Paul Kupka in 1922 . Kupka compiled a total of 43 sites from which pottery originates, which is characterized by three common features: their structure, their sparse decoration and their finding in individual graves with body burial. With regard to the graves, Kupka applies the restriction that the pottery was found in dolmens, stone box graves and shallow graves. He differentiates between five vessel shapes: funnel neck amphoras, four-eyed vases, jugs with handles, bulbous, single-handled pots and kummen (hemispherical and conical vessels). The various authors originally assigned these to the Bernburg culture, the Rössen culture , the cord ceramics, the megalithic ceramics (funnel cup culture ), the Bronze Age and even the Latène Age . Kupka finally followed a further assignment, namely that of pile dwelling ceramics (southern German Michelsberg culture ) and defined a specifically Central German pile dwelling ceramics.

However, this interpretation of Kupka was not very well received and as early as 1925 Nils Niklasson recognized the independence of Baalberg ceramics. Based on the finds from the Baalberger Schneiderberg and the Pohlsberg near Latdorf, he defined the type of "Baalberger type jugs". To this main shape, he adds eight or four-handled amphorae and small handle pots. Initially, however, Niklasson's work did not go beyond the definition of a new type of vessel. Although he recognized that the Baalberg type did not really want to fit into any of the archaeological cultures defined up to then, he did not yet derive a new regional group or independent culture from the finds.

Paul Grimm was the first to take this last step . From 1929 onwards, in collaboration with Niklasson, he dealt more closely with the Baalberger type and published his results in 1937. With 163 sites, he had a considerably larger starting point than Kupka. This now also allowed him to structure the Baalberg ceramics internally and to make statements about the relative chronology, both of which have been greatly revised by more recent work by Joachim Preuss , Jan Lichardus and, most recently, Johannes Müller .

In March 1997 the Schneiderberg was cut when creating a hiking trail. A broken flint blade was recovered. The lower monument protection authority Bernburg then imposed a construction freeze and ordered the restoration of the original condition of the hill.

description

The hill

The top of the hill forms a plateau
A survey stone is in the middle of the plateau
In 1958, a memorial stone for the millennium of Baalberge was erected on the slope of the hill.
Ground plan and cross section of the Schneiderberg
Finds from the Schneiderberg

The hill has a height of 5.57 m and a circumference of 133 m. Its top is flattened and forms a plateau with a diameter of 8 m and a slight increase in the east. At this point there is a modern surveying stone. The hill was originally surrounded by a moat, but it was filled in in the 19th century. Earth from the north side of the Schneiderberg was used for this purpose. After the excavations in 1901 were completed, all of the cuts were refilled and the external shape of the burial mound was restored to the shape it had before the investigation. The only known finds that come from the mound and not from one of the graves were two ceramic shards of the Walternienburg culture, which were found in the northwest of the hill. In 1958 a memorial stone was erected on the Schneiderberg to mark the millennium of the Baalberge town.

The central plate grave of the Baalberg culture

The central and original grave is on the ground floor right in the center of the hill. It is oriented roughly east-west and clad with stone slabs. The wall panels are approximately 0.25 m thick and enclose a chamber 1.50 m long, 0.80 m wide and 0.80 m high. The top plate is 0.3 m thick, an estimated length of 3 m and a width of 2.30 m. So it protrudes about 50 cm over the wall panels on all sides.

Since part of the grave lies under the surveying stone, only its western half could be exposed. To get inside the chamber, one corner of the cover plate had to be knocked off. The paving of the chamber was made of tamped earth, the walls were bare.

Only a few very poorly preserved bone fragments were found from the funeral. Two vessels of the previously unknown Baalberg culture were found among grave goods. It is a jug 16 cm high and a cup 7.5 cm high. Both vessels are tripartite with a sharp abdominal-shoulder break and a cylindrical neck.

The plate grave of the Walternienburger and the bulb amphora culture

The second grave is to the east of the Baalberger Kammer, about 30 cm above ground level. It is oriented roughly north-south and also clad with stone slabs. The sandstone top plate was 2.63 m long, 1.32 m wide and 0.50 m thick. Their mass was estimated at 41–60 quintals (2050–3000 kg). The side walls of the chamber form stone slabs that are trapezoidal on the long sides. The east has a length of 1.90 m and a height of 1.05 m in the north and 0.85 m in the south. On the inside it has a strip 1.10 m long, 0.60 m high and 3 cm thick. The western plate has a length of 2.05 m and a height of 0.95 m in the north and 0.60 m in the south. The two panels are 22 and 37 cm thick. The southern narrow side is bordered by two thin slabs, each 3 cm thick, placed one behind the other, which are smeared with clay. Large stones rested on the outside of the wall panels, the spaces between them being filled with dry masonry. The burial chamber has a height of 0.75 m and is divided into two areas by a 0.1 m thick transverse slab at 0.75 m from the north. The two narrow sides formed the original access to the two graves.

In the northern area, the excavators found poorly preserved skeletal remains that crumbled immediately when touched, and the only grave gift was a two-part cup with a deep, sharp break. It has a height of 15.5 cm and a top diameter of 14.8 cm. The long handle is 5 cm wide. The lower area of ​​the vessel is decorated with a band of standing triangles and above it a band of arched notches and in the upper area three circumferential fillets. Höfer assigned it to the Bernburg culture, but actually it belongs to the Walternienburg culture. Another find was the fragment of a flint chisel. It is sanded and has a rectangular cross-section. It has a width of 2.0 cm, a thickness of 1.2 cm and a preserved length of 4.6 cm, which is hardly a third of the complete tool. Höfer therefore suspected that it was not intended as a grave gift, but that it was a tool that was broken while working on the stone slabs.

A semicircular hole with a width of 50 cm in the partition plate allowed access to the southern part of the chamber, which is 1.35 m long and 0.7 m wide. Here, too, the skeletal remains were very poorly preserved. Two spherical amphorae were found as grave goods . The larger one had a height of 33 cm and a circumference of 105 cm. The neck has a zigzag band and a diamond lattice as decoration, the shoulder a lattice band and diagonal lines. the smaller amphora has a height of 20 cm, a circumference of 66 cm and a mouth diameter of 7.7 cm. The neck is decorated with a diamond lattice, the shoulder with a row of dots, a horizontal line and vertical stripes. The smaller amphora was filled to the brim with barley that a hamster had stored here.

After the excavations in this part of the hill were completed, the large grave slab was removed by the Baalberge community and used for a Bismarck stone, which was consecrated at the local church in 1902. In 1953, however, it was razed and sunk at what was then the body shop. Its exact location is unknown.

The stone box of Cord Ceramic

On the western slope of the hill, about halfway up, only 50 cm below the surface or 2.50 m below the top of the hill, a small stone box made of rye stone was discovered, which was oriented roughly northeast-southwest. The box was three feet long; their width was 0.70 m in the southwest and 0.60 m in the northeast. Their height was 0.50 m. The wall panels were 5, 7, and 8 cm thick; the two cover plates were 5 and 7 cm thick. The floor also formed a plate.

The burial was somewhat better preserved than in the older graves. It consisted of a skeleton crouched on the right, facing south with a view to the east. The head rested on a flat stone. Two typical cord pottery vessels were found as grave goods. The first stood in front of the dead man's face. It was an eyelet cup with a height of 15.5 cm. His neck was decorated with rows of lines. A large flint knife was found inside. The second vessel was in the northeast corner at the dead man's feet. It was a beaker 10.8 cm high with a string decoration on the neck.

The Bronze Age graves

About in the middle of the hill above the central grave and slightly to the west is a group of burial chambers of the early Bronze Age Aunjetitz culture. These were arranged in three layers. The graves of the two upper layers were robbed, which is why Höfer only briefly described them, but not included in the excavation plan. The first layer of graves was only 0.75–1.00 m below the top of the hill. It consisted of three stone boxes, the largest of which had a cover plate with a length of 1.00 m, a width of 0.75 m and a thickness of 0.25 m. The two boxes next to it had cover plates 0.75 m long and 0.50 m wide. All three graves were completely empty. The second layer of graves lay at a depth of about five feet below the hilltop. This group consisted of six stone boxes that lay under the hill plateau and south of it. The only finds from these disturbed burials were a few pottery shards, which Höfer did not describe in detail.

A third layer of graves, however, was undisturbed. These were 2.50 m below the top of the hill and were protected at the top by thick stone packings. The group of graves was oriented northwest-southeast and consisted of at least four or five chambers. The north-western area formed two adjacent and very similar graves. The north-east had a total length of 2.00 m, a width of 0.98 m and a height of 0.70 m. Due to additional stone slabs on the long sides, however, its width was narrowed to 0.67 m. Furthermore, a small, empty antechamber was separated from the actual grave by a transverse plate. In the 1.50 m long burial chamber, a poorly preserved skeleton was found, which was buried in the right crouched position facing west and facing south. Grave goods were not found.

The grave to the southwest of this was built at the same time as the first one, because both shared a common long side and a common cover plate 0.25 m thick. This grave was 1.75 m long, 0.80 m wide and between 0.60 m and 0.70 m high. Only a few unspecified skeletal remains remained from the burial. The only burial object found was a piece of bronze.

To the southeast of these two graves was a single chamber. It had a length of 1.50 m and a width of 1.38 m in the northeast and 1.08 m in the southwest. The only object found here was a cup from the older Bronze Age with a low handle and rounded edges.

Another burial chamber was connected further to the southeast. It had a length of 2.90 m, a width of 0.80 m and a height of 0.50 m. This chamber was oriented north-northeast-south-southwest. The cover plate was made of rye stone and was only 2.5-3 cm thick. Remnants of oak were discovered inside the chamber, which probably belonged to a ceiling plank, but not to a complete coffin. At the southern end, five oak stakes were also found that were 50 cm high and 20 cm thick. They were pointed at the bottom and fastened with a layer of clay. The piles certainly served as supports, either directly for the stone slab or for the wooden plank. Some remains of the burial were found, including a broken lower jaw with well-preserved teeth in the south. Grave goods were not found in the chamber itself, but two bronze daggers lay in the middle on the top of the cover plate. The smaller one was poorly preserved and consisted only of a 7.4 cm long fragment from the upper blade with three rivets. The handle was not preserved. The larger dagger was 30 cm long. It has six rivets and a rung-like handle with an oval Krauf. Both daggers date to the older Bronze Age (period I).

A second row of wooden stakes set in clay was discovered 1.50 m south of this grave. These probably belonged to another burial chamber, which was not examined in detail.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Beier : The grave and burial customs of the Walternienburg and Bernburg culture. Halle (Saale) 1984, p. 102.
  • Hans-Jürgen Beier: The globe amphora culture in the Middle Elbe-Saale area and in the Altmark (= publications of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Volume 41). Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1988, ISBN 978-3-326-00339-9 , pp. 113-114.
  • Johann Christoph Bekmann : History of the Principality of Anhalt. Zerbst 1710, p. 140 ( online ).
  • Walther Bremer : Baalberg. In: Max Ebert (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte. Volume 1, de Gruyter, Berlin 1924, p. 308.
  • Carl Engel : Pictures from prehistoric times on the middle Elbe. 1. Stone and Bronze Age. Hopfer, Burg 1930, p. 120.
  • Wilhelm Albert von Brunn : Knowledge and care of the ground monuments in Anhalt. In: Annual publication for Central German prehistory. Volume 41/42, 1958, pp. 28-71.
  • Wilhelm Alber von Brunn: The Bernburg burial mounds. Its history and its significance for the vertical stratigraphy of the late Neolithic. In: Prehistoric Journal. Volume 52, 1977, pp. 4-27.
  • Karsten Falke, Andreas Neubert: Baalberge. 8th spring excursion by the Archeology Working Group in the Bernburger Land and the Anhalt Regional Studies Association on April 26, 2014 ( online ).
  • Ulrich Fischer : The Stone Age graves in the Saale region. Studies on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age grave and burial forms in Saxony-Thuringia (= prehistoric research. Volume 15). De Gruyter, Berlin 1956, pp. 48-54.
  • Fabian Gall : Stone Age Landscape Latdorf (= small booklets on archeology in Saxony-Anhalt. Volume 1). State Office for Archeology Saxony-Anhalt / State Museum for Prehistory, Halle (Saale) 2003, ISBN 3-910010-70-9 , pp. 8–9.
  • Paul Grimm : The Baalberg culture in Central Germany. In: Mannus. Volume 19, 1937, pp. 155-187.
  • Paul Höfer : Baalberge. In: Annual publication for the prehistory of the Saxon-Thuringian countries. Volume 1, 1902, pp. 16-49 ( online ).
  • Paul Kupka : The roots of Central German Stone Age pottery. In: Contributions to the history, regional and folklore of the Altmark. Volume 4, 1922, pp. 364-384.
  • Hans Lucas , edited by Ulrich Fischer: Catalogs on Central German Cord Ceramics. Volume 2. The mouth of the Saale (= publications by the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Volume 20). Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1965, p. 3.
  • Gerhard Mildenberger : Studies on the Central German Neolithic (= publications of the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden. Volume 2). 1953, pp. 23-24.
  • Nils Niklasson : The stratigraphic structure of the Baalberger hill near Bernburg, the Pohlsberg near Latdorf and the Derfflinger hill near Kalbsrieth: In: Mannus. Volume 16, 1924, p. 49.
  • Nils Niklasson: Studies on the Walternienburg-Bernburger culture 1 (= annual publication for Central German prehistory. Volume 13). Halle (Saale) 1925 ( online ).
  • Joachim Preuss : The Baalberger Group in Central Germany. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1966.
  • Hans Priebe : The western limit of the spherical amphorae. In: Mitteldeutsche Volkheit. Volume 6, 1939, p. 10.
  • Andreas Sattler : The graves of the Aunjetitz culture in the Saale region. On the ritual of the dead based on the older findings (= university research on prehistoric archeology. Volume 267). Habelt, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7749-3941-7 , p. 89.
  • Waldtraut Schrickel : Catalog of the Central German graves with Western European elements and the gallery graves of Western Germany (= contributions to the prehistoric and early historical archeology of the Mediterranean cultural area. Volume 5). Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1966, pp. 391–392.

Web links

Commons : Schneiderberg (Baalberge)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 16-17.
  2. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 17.
  3. ↑ C. Hornig: Archaeological Find Chronicle of the State of Saxony-Anhalt 1998. In: Annual journal for Central German Prehistory. Volume 82, 1998, pp. 231-232 ( online ).
  4. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 19-20.
  5. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 29-30.
  6. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 20.
  7. ^ A b Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 30-31.
  8. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 31-32.
  9. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 23-24, 27-28.
  10. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 24.
  11. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 28-29.
  12. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 25-27.
  13. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 35.
  14. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 35-36.
  15. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 20-21.
  16. ↑ a b c Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 21.
  17. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, pp. 21-23.
  18. ^ Paul Höfer: Baalberge. 1902, p. 23.